Why Members Have To Be 13 or Over

We are hosted by InvisionFree and we must comply with COPPA. This means that only authorised members under 13 are allowed to join - an authorised member is one who has had a signed COPPA parental permission form either faxed or sent to us.
We don't have COPPA registration (we have no means to receive those forms) so we must make sure all our members are over thirteen. If they post they are under13, or put it in their profile or tell us they are less than 13 - we must delete their account (otherwise we are breaching InvisionFree's Terms of Service).

I'm 13 now but when I first joined I was 12, and I didn't see this rule before. I mean, I know your not being rude or exclude anyone, but I don't get why you can't just let people under 13 say there 13 so they can have as much enjoyment as the rest? I am betting that a 4th or 5th of this whole site's population has kids under 13 or just turned 13 and are not coming clean, but can you really blame them? I mean just look at how orginized and imforming it is! You won't find any of this on other sites? No one is as good as making charts as binary, no site has better logs, and also, this site is the best at finding new things faster! Although we may not know who some of these young kids are on this site, we shouldn't jump to conclusions and erase some. Because you may end up arresting a 15 year old who is a kid at heart! This is just weird for me because I didn't know about this until just a few weeks ago, which was also when I turned 13.

One more querie, what happendeds when all of this youngsters under 13 turn 13 in a few weeks, months, years? Are really just going to get rit of them because they had so much fun on this site? I wouldn't, but I would be pretty mad if I did find out I'll admit, and maybe give them a "time out" for a while.

I am really not trying to be rude, I am just speaking my mind. I know I can't change the rules, and I respect your descisions you the staff make. I just wanted to let you know about my second feelings towards this. But on the one hand, if I do find any hologian (Not normal guy, bad guy) who is under 13, I notify you.

Its not a matter of just turning a blind eye to this rule. We have to abide by InvisionFree's Terms of Service and Terms of Use and must comply with COPPA.
We don't have facilities to accept COPPA registration forms - so our members must be over 13 to comply with it. Its that simple....If members are found to be less than 13 - THEY HAVE TO BE DELETED.
Now if someone acts like they are less than 13 and we check their profile and it says they are less than 13 - we delete them. If someone posts they are less than 13 - we delete them. If we come across a member whose profile says they are less than 13 - we delete them. We have to, or we have to answer to InvisionFree, and the owner of InvisionFree has come on here before and advised us that we were breaching their Rules of Use.
So I'm sorry - its not a matter of time-outs/turning a blind eye etc - we have to comply with COPPA.

By visiting or using any page on InvisionFree, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions at all times and to any changes made to these terms thereafter. Unauthorized users under the age of thirteen (13) will have their accounts deleted without notice upon discovery.

#6

Your account or board may be deleted for any violation of the InvisionFree Terms of Use or for any reason deemed necessary. InvisionFree may not explain why your account/board/Content was deleted or edited.

1 Accepting the Terms of Use:
By visiting or using any page on InvisionFree, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions at all times and to any changes made to these terms thereafter. Unauthorized users under the age of thirteen (13) will have their accounts deleted without notice upon discovery.

You have to click "I agree" certifying that you've read the list of rules that includes that one FIRST.

I'm sorry, members. I know it's tough. But if we see a member who is provably under 13, they have to be deleted. Those are the rules, and we didn't make them. We hope these members will still be Tama fans when they're old enough to be members here.

Remember, Tama-Zone is not the only Tamagotchi board out there. We're just the one with the 13 and over rule.

peace_ninja_fierce_ninja @ Jun 7 2007, 05:50 AM wrote: I feel sorry for the other members who got deleted.

Spare a thought for the staff who have to save the whole of TamaZone from being deleted by Invisionfree everytime a thoughless under-thirteen posts their age. There are countless forums being deleted all the time for that very reason, so just think on that. If you want TamaZone to stay operational, abide by the rules or everyone will lose out.

A deleted member will still be able to view the forum and most importantly the resource sections as a visitor, they just can't post. However, if the whole forum gets deleted, that's all our precious resources lost forever.

chocosilver @ Jul 7 2007, 06:41 AM wrote: Err, I know of a few members here that are under 13 - Should I PM an Admin?

As far as we are concerned on here - if someone posts that thay are under 13, have a birthdate in their profile making them under 13, or discusses with others on here that they are under 13 - we HAVE to delete their account. If their behaviour also makes it highly unlikely that they are 13 or over - we may also delete the account at our discretion. We really want to be running a tamagotchi forum here - not investigating every member on here to determine their true age.
GK1